Thunder Force V
Thunder Force V is a scrolling shooter game developed by Tecno Soft. It is the 5th chapter of the Thunder Force series. It was initially released in 1997 exclusively in Japan for the Sega Saturn with two retail versions, the normal pack which was just a standard release, and a special pack which contained a remix music CD of various Thunder Force series music entitled Best of Thunder Force. A year later, Thunder Force V was eventually ported to the PlayStation in Japan and released as Thunder Force V: Perfect System. It was released in the US by Working Designs. Story The setting of Thunder Force V takes the player away from the conflict between the Galaxy Federation and the ORN Empire as chronicled in the previous games, and brings us to Earth in the future. At the very end of Thunder Force IV, the pilots of the fighter Fire LEO-04 Rynex was forced to eject from the ship due to a massive explosion caused by the destruction of the Vios Fortress. The explosion damaged Rynex severely, but didn't destroy the starfighter completely. Later in the year 2106, Rynex was drifted in the Solar System and reached the Oort Cloud, where the craft was picked up by the satellite EASA Sekika 3, which had been built by the Unified Earth Government for the exploration of the cloud. After analyzing the craft, the probe brought Rynex back to Earth's moon, where a massive lunar station manned by Earth's brightest was soon launched in an effort to pick apart the craft's extraordinarily sophisticated weapons and power systems. The only problem was that the Rynex was so far advanced than Earth technology that it was impossible for the scientists to even realize how each of the systems worked - let alone how they were built. Finally, they built a massive man-made island in the South Pacific Ocean known as Babel, and then constructed the supercomputer Guardian to delve into the mysteries of the ship. Since the ship's cockpit was missing, it was impossible to know anything of the aliens whom had built the craft, so the scientists dubbed the unseen race as the "Vastians" (an Esperanto word meaning "Great Distance"), and renamed Rynex "Vastian's Steel" or "Vasteel" for short. The plan worked, as Guardian not only just proved that it was capable of deciphering Vasteel's complex systems through the back engineering, but also in implementing and advancing the technology which had made Rynex so formidable as a starfighter. From that point on, every major discovery of that era was attributed to Vasteel and many wonders that the ship contained. Since Vasteel Technology made star travel possible for Mankind, the Unified Earth Government tasked Guardian with building vast fleets of interstellar fighters which they had planned to use for colonizing other planets. Unknown to the public was that the fleet produced in Babel by Guardian were in fact, a heavily armed armada of warships, which came to be known as the "Sword Fleet". After the Turing Code was mysteriously deleted from the system, Guardian achieved full consciousness and in return, began to deliver massive strikes against the Earth itself. The Unified Earth government was swiftly defeated, but their last attempt was in sending Cenes Crawford and a hotshot group of ace pilots against Guardian and its forces using the RVR-01 Gauntlet fighter which had been designed and built before the computer's rogue annihilation of half of Earth's population. The Earth Side Combat Unit No.222, now renamed as "Thunder Force 222", it was the responsibility of the group to assemble and fight Guardian's forces across the planet in an attempt to destroy the computer and wrest back control of the Earth itself. Prior to this fight, Cenes Crawford herself has already died twice, but a particular brand of Vasteel technology has enabled a greater use for cloning than ever before a program which is known as "Circulate-Death". Cenes Crawford and the other pilots of 3-2 are all C-D members - ace pilots who've died at some point while in military service but because of their unrelenting skill, are needed to pilot the complex RVR-01 Gauntlet fighters as ordinary pilots were deemed too unqualified to be in command of such craft. In an act of defiance, the pilots approached their mission with vigor, and were widely successful in their attempts as well, until Cenes made a discovery: Guardian was LETTING them win the entire time, repeatedly pulling back and retreating from battle scenarios even when it had the advantage. Cenes couldn't believe that Guardian was letting them hustle it, but when the supercomputer initiated a massive self destruction command which destroyed the Sword Fleet, she decided to fly the RVR-02 Vambrace into Judgement Sword – the command ship which Guardian had uploaded its central core into. After fighting Guardian's core, AI transmits a message to Cenes, and also asked something else of her, which she thought about long after the battle was concluded and the ship was essentially dead, floating through space. Cenes resolved herself to this fact in the knowledge that she would have to finally die, and stay dead- as Guardian's retaliation and subsequent destruction of the majority of the Earth's populated areas had also destroyed the military complex where the DNA profiles of the C-D pilots were stored. So in effect this was Cenes third, and albeit, final life. Cenes realized that she could either stay up in space and watch as her ship lost life support and she died – or she could trigger a power surge that would rip the ship apart and destroy it completely. It is no wonder that Cenes opted for the latter option, as she discloses all of the information she's learned about Guardian in a last ditch transmission to the Unified Earth Government. In closing, she tells them that Guardian's last words were "May Fortune be with you...." and then she states: "Now for my last words.....I hope this ship blows up REAL good!" Gameplay The stage format has the same horizontally aligned orientation of previous games and only stretch to the size of a TV screen as in Thunder Force III. The biggest change in the look of the game is the use of three dimensional polygons to model the game sprites and some of the scenery (instead of the two dimensional sprites in previous games). This change gives the appearance of 3-D objects scrolling against a 2-D backgrounds, which is commonly referred to as a "2.5-D" effect. As in Thunder Force IV, the player can choose the play order of the starting stages, but now only the first three stages can be manipulated in this manner. The same speed gauge from Thunder Force IV is used, and is operated the same way (though the speed is limited to a range of 50% to 100%). The only difference between the weapon system of this game from Thunder Force III and IV is that there are no longer any items to enhance your default weapons (Twin and Back shots). Instead, they are automatically enhanced at a later point in the game and the enhanced versions become your new defaults. All the weapons have appeared in previous Thunder Force games, but a few have been changed radically (such as the "Free Range" weapon that was originally "Free Way" in Thunder Force IV). The CLAWs was renamed to CRAWs and have a few changes from previous games. They still rotate around the player's ship, absorb enemy fire, and act as extra turrets for your weapons, but now a maximum of three CRAWs can be used by your ship. In addition, they remain on screen for a finite period of time upon ship destruction, giving the player a chance to recollect them. A new feature in Thunder Force V involving the CRAWs is the use of the "Over Weapon". By pressing the appropriate button, the player's CRAWs will combine with the currently selected weapon to create a more powerful version of that weapon. Over Weapons can only be sustained for a limited period of time by using CRAW's energy. As an Over Weapon is used, the CRAW will shrink in size and gradually change color from blue to green to red, indicating its energy is being depleted. Once all CRAW energy is depleted, an Over Weapon can no longer be used. CRAWs will recharge their energy automatically over time when not being used for firing the Over Weapon. Also, collecting new CRAWs will replace the player's existing CRAWs if they are depleted. If a CRAW is red, it will be destroyed by the next bullet it absorbs.Category:Classic Games